“The blackout is already here.” What energy leaders say about resilience in a hyper-connected grid

“The blackout is already here.” That was Rob van Kranenburg’s stark assessment during the Frends Energy Hour webinar, "Preventing the Blackout". Not as a dramatic prediction of a continent-wide collapse, but as a reality check.

“In Holland, for example, there are 15,000 companies waiting to get power in order to work, because the grid is not able,” he explained. Rob is the founder of IoT council and was joined by Andris Piebalgs, former EU Commissioner for Energy and professor at the European University Institute's Florence School of Regulation, and Simón López, project manager at Volue, a leading Nordic technology provider enabling Europe's green energy transition.

Energy systems today are more digital, more interconnected and more regulated than ever before. The session's opening remembered the Iberian Peninsula blackout — “the most severe blackout in Europe in 20 years” — and framed it as a warning.

With renewables accelerating, cross-border dependencies increasing and cyber threats multiplying, the digital layer connecting everything has become part of critical infrastructure.

"We are decarbonizing our electricity mix. We are integrating intermittent resources. We are electrifying transport, heating, industry, and on top of that digitalizing operations," said Andris Piebalgs.

And that changes the stakes.

Pressure is building, fast

One of the most sobering data points shared during the discussion was that European electricity and gas utilities faced over 1,500 cyber attacks per week in 2024 — three times more than in 2020.

So what happens if organizations hesitate?

Simón López didn’t soften his answer:

“Doing nothing is a bet on certain failure.”

He added plainly: “It’s a really risky thing to do.”

From his operational perspective, integration sits at the center of that risk. As markets move toward increasingly real-time operations, legacy integration practices struggle to keep pace. The more fragmented the data flows, the harder it becomes to anticipate failure before it cascades.

Trust, stability and the digital backbone

If energy systems are now cyber-physical systems, then resilience is no longer only about physical substations or transmission lines. It is about data integrity, system interoperability and governance.

When asked what makes systems trustworthy, Rob pointed to something fundamental:

“So the trustworthiness is in the stability of the connection and the stability of the transmission that you receive and that you get.”

In other words, resilience starts in the invisible layer — the connections between systems, the APIs, the integrations, the governance models. When those are unstable, everything built on top becomes fragile.

That fragility becomes especially dangerous when automation and AI enter the picture.

As the panel discussed accountability, one theme became clear: automation does not remove responsibility. If anything, it heightens the need for traceability and governance. Energy companies cannot afford opaque decision-making in mission-critical environments.

Regulation: obstacle or accelerator?

With 15-minute settlements in the EU, accelerated settlement in the UK and increasing compliance requirements across regions, regulation is reshaping how energy data must flow.

But rather than framing regulation purely as a constraint, the discussion highlighted it as a forcing function for modernization. "It was actually a necessity," said Andris. "You have more renewables. You need to be more precise and anticipate, because otherwise it’s very difficult to manage."

Real-time reporting, stronger grid stability and AI adoption all depend on clean, governed and transparent data flows.

And that brings the conversation back to integration.

AI in energy: promise with responsibility

AI was another key theme. Where does it add value? Where does it introduce risk?

The consensus was clear: AI can optimize operations, forecast demand and detect anomalies, but only if the foundations are solid. Without stable integrations and governed data pipelines, AI becomes another layer of complexity rather than a resilience tool.

Andris explained:

"You need to be sure of what AI does, that it improves the system, strengthens it, and you can trust it."

In short, trust cannot be an afterthought. 

The human factor

Despite the technical depth of the conversation, the group brought it back to something simple: “It’s all about resilience.”

And resilience, as the panel agreed, is ultimately human. Technology can accelerate, automate and optimize, but governance, accountability and strategic foresight remain human responsibilities.

Preventing the blackout is no longer just about physical infrastructure. It is about anticipating systemic risk in a hyper-connected world and strengthening the digital backbone before stress turns into disruption.

"Human judgment has to be part of it," said Rob.

Watch the full discussion

From cyber threats and grid congestion to AI, regulation, and integration architecture, Preventing the Blackout offers a candid look at what operational resilience really demands today.

Watch the full Energy Hour on demand here.

If the blackout is already here in subtle ways, the real question is no longer if systems will be tested, but whether they are designed to withstand the pressure.